Comfort zone Challenge summary, Eric's personal experiences from the challenge

Comfort zone Challenge summary, Eric's personal experiences from the challenge

15:05:00 - By Vincent 0

10 Ways to Reduce Rigidness, Decrease Anxiety, Increase Flexibility, and Have More Fun

Andrea UmbaBy cBy
By Andrea Umbach

Structure, organization, and consistency are highly encouraged in the workplace, at school, or in parenting. But how much is too much? At what point do we become too rigid and inflexible?

As a clinical psychologist, I’m not surprised that I frequently see rigidness in individuals who are depressed and anxious. A good source of ways to learn about managing symptoms of anxiety and depression is the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) website.

People who are controlling and inflexible often find themselves frustrated because the rest of the world doesn’t live by their rules and expectations. Just because you want to eat green foods only or arrive to the airport three hours early doesn’t mean that anyone else wants to, so you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

Flexibility means seeing things from different perspectives, tolerating ambiguity, taking risks, and learning from mistakes. It helps us adapt to a constantly changing environment and shows that we can handle diversity and accept other people’s preferences. Flexibility leads to openness, more opportunities, and less depression and anxiety.

Adults and children must find a balance between structure and spontaneity. Structure allows for a framework, choices, and some flexibility, but rigidity means you follow the rules — or else. How do you find balance? The best thing is to maintain structure and organization, but allow time for fun and taking advantage of opportunities that come your way.

Some people can do this on their own. But others need the help of a therapist. With appropriate treatment from a mental health professional, you can overcome anxiety and depression, which leads to a healthier quality of life.

Try these 10 ways to increase your flexibility:

1. Observe your rigid behaviors. Spend a few days actively taking note of your routines and rules. Ask your partner, children, or friends to tell you when your rigidness appears. This exercise isn’t meant to make you feel bad; it should help you learn to make your life more flexible.

2. Try new things. Try a new food, sport, type of movie, deodorant, anything! Get your brain used to doing things differently. If you havesocial anxiety and are worried about being judged by others, be honest about the worst thing that could happen: You might feel uncomfortable. But taking a risk will help you tackle the unexpected and open up to new experiences.

3. Embrace opportunities. Don’t say “no” purely out of habit. Instead of thinking of 20 reasons not to do something new, think of five reasons you should do it. Keep the bigger picture in mind. For example, I might not feel like going out with friends, but I want to continue to build friendships.

4. Be in the moment. Don’t think about all the other things you need to do. Slow down and focus on what you are experiencing internally and externally at that moment. Remind yourself of what you value most. I’m guessing that having good family relationships ranks higher than a clean kitchen.

5. Mix it up. Do you always do things exactly the same for a reason or just out of habit? Practice doing things differently. Drive a new route to work, substitute spinning for yoga, or build a fort with the kids and let them sleep in it. Show yourself that you can do things differently, and nothing disastrous will happen.

6. Go with the flow. This one might be a bigger challenge: Allow others to take charge. Have a day where your partner or friend plans everything without your opinion. This is a great way to see how it feels to be on the other side of rigid.

7. Compromise. Identify the situations where you are always in charge. Are there others in your life who deserve some input ? They may have stopped giving their opinions because you don’t acknowledge them, so this will be an adjustment for both parties. Actively listen to others and see if you can meet them half way.

8. Let it go. Practice letting the small stuff go. If your partner doesn’t fold the towels the way you like or the kids don’t make their beds well, just let it be. Keeping quiet will be very difficult at first, but consider how much freedom you’ll gain not having to monitor or complete every single task on your own.

9. Catch yourself. Monitor your vocabulary for “can’t,” “shouldn’t,” or “not right.” These are red flags that you are moving into rigid territory. Try “let’s see,” “let’s find out,” “I’m not sure,” or “what do you think?”

10. Practice. Just as you have to practice stretching your muscles to become more physically flexible, you must do the same thing to become mentally flexible. Set small goals at first, such as making one small change each day. The more you can challenge yourself to allow for new experiences, the easier it will be to integrate them into your everyday life.

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13:00:00 - By Vincent 0

How Expectations Undermine Our Relationships and Happiness

By Jen Picicci

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“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.” ~Bruce Lee

A few years ago, my husband was away from me for a few weeks, working in another town. It was summer, and we were living close to the beach at the time, so I often spent my Saturday nights walking along the ocean at sunset, enjoying the colors and sounds.

One Saturday night I was in a simply glorious mood. The beach was filled with happy families and couples, the Atlantic was a particularly lovely shade of aquamarine, and life felt just about perfect.

When I got back to my car I looked at my cell phone and saw that I had missed a call from my husband. I called him back and quickly realized his mood was not nearly as buoyant as my own: He wasn’t particularly chatty, and seemed pretty negative about the work he was doing.

I took this extremely personally and turned cold and quiet almost immediately, eventually taking the very juvenile step of hanging up on him. How dare he ruin my perfect summer evening!?

About ten minutes later, in the parking lot of a grocery store, I had a huge epiphany: He hadn’t ruined anything. It was all me, as my negative feelings were entirely created by my expectations of how he should have behaved.

I had been anticipating that he would be in the same great mood I was, and when he wasn’t, I took it personally. I became upset that he wasn’t acting as I expected. I became angry because he wasn’t meeting the standards I had set.

In other words, I was completely responsible for my deflated mood.

This was the very first time I realized how having expectations of how other people should act was causing unnecessary pain and suffering in my life. Once I started looking around, though, I saw many other examples.

For instance, I once had the expectation that a new acquaintance would quickly respond to my text and agree that she, too, had a nice time hanging out with me.

When she didn’t, I ended up spending more than twenty-four hours wondering if she liked me, feeling pretty bad about myself. (She did eventually respond with a very nice text; she’s just a busy person who doesn’t respond to texts immediately!)

I expected an automatic response, and not getting one undermined my happiness.

Another example is the time I was seventeen and gave my dad a Father’s Day card I thought he’d find really funny, and he barely even responded to it at all.

I had built up a vision of him having a really warm and amused reception to this card, and when there was almost zero reaction, I was crushed. Again, my expectations, and the beliefs about what it meant if they weren’t met, were causing pain.

Before you think that I’m suggesting you lower your expectations of other people and never, ask anything of anyone, let me clarify a bit.

Telling a friend about a tough situation at home and expecting you’ll get some words of wisdom is wonderful. Hoping the guy whose eye you’ve been trying to catch will smile at you today can be fun and rewarding.

Hoping for the outcome you desire is one thing, trying to force it and being overrun with negative thoughts and feelings when it doesn’t work out is another.

You can’t control the way people think, feel, or react. Ever. You may try to, you may want to, but ultimately, how they act is up to them.

And when you base your feelings of happiness, worth, or confidence on the actions or reactions of other people, you’re setting yourself up for many moments (or days or even years) of avoidable misery.

There are a few ways to keep hoping for positive interactions with other people, but not get sucked down into the mud and muck when they don’t go as you expect.

1. Stop expecting other people to act exactly as you would like them to—it’s a game you’re guaranteed to lose. Instead, try being open to any and all reactions from others.

If, on that gorgeous night back in 2012, I had opened my mind and heart to my husband with no preconceived notions of what his mood should be, my evening could have remained joyful and I may have even improved his evening, too.

Back when I was seventeen, if I had realized that my dad’s lack of reaction had nothing to do with me, but was about his own problems with expressing emotions, I would have felt far less hurt. I couldn’tmake him react the way I wanted, and assuming he would do what would make me happy led to a sad experience for me.

2. Start building up your own happiness and confidence on something youdo have power over: your thoughts and beliefs.

When someone does the unexpected and it disappoints you, it’s always because you had a belief about what they were supposed to do.

You believe that your mother should have been proud when you won the essay contest, and when she wasn’t, you were sad. If, on the other hand, you lean in to the truth that your mother can react however she wants to, but still believe you are a wonderful writer anyway, your pain won’t be so great.

You believe your son should have gotten better grades, but when he brings home a poor report card, you feel angry and guilty. When you stop believing that your son’s grades are a reflection on you as a parent, and start believing that you’re doing the best you can and letting go of guilt, you suffer less.

3. Stay in the moment as often as you can.

Stay present with your thoughts, and see if you’re holding onto expectations of how other people should behave.

It’s when you slip out of being in the now that you are truly disappointed. When this happens, you’re letting your thoughts and stories about what the other person should have done, or what will happen now because of this perceived slight, or why you deserve to be angry, take you out of the now and down a path that is full of rejection and fear.

The bottom line is that you will not find peace if you’re always expecting other people to give it to you with their actions or words or even love. The only way to find it is to drop your expectations of others, let go of what you think they should or shouldn’t do, and allow yourself to create your own happiness.

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16:24:00 - By Vincent 0